The Tarot Series 5

13. The Veil (High Priestess)

Oil on canvas 30 x 40cm (2024)

INFLUENCES

The High Priestess card from Crowley’s Thoth Deck, painted in pastel by Lady Frieda Harris.

Odilon Redon’s charcoal drawings and lithographs of disembodied heads circa 1880.

Jean Delville’s oil painting ‘The Death of Orpheus’ (1893).

Isis and Osiris: Plutarch. circa 1st century A.D.

“In Sais the statue of Athena, whom they believe to be be Isis, bore the inscription:
I am all that has been, and is, and shall be, and my robe no mortal has yet uncovered.”

14. The Hollow Man (The Emperor)

(he hollowness of  temporal power)

Oil on canvas 51 x 77cm (2024)

INFLUENCES

The Wicker Man film (1973).
Apocalypse Now film (1979).
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (1899).
T.S. Eliot’s poem the Hollow Men (1925).
C.S. Lewis’s novel That Hideous Strength (1945).

Found a wicker torso.
A carapace for clothes.
A liberty tie
A dusty hat.
Festooned with ivy.

Do they live these hollow men?
Crumbling simulacra shams.
Oh what horror!
And when Death comes
It does so as a whimper.

15. Temperance

Oil on canvas 30 x 40cm (2025)

INFLUENCES

Theme Tune: ‘Case of you’ by Joni Mitchell. (1971).

The Matter of Britain particularly the stories relating to the Holy Grail.

Booklist:
Parsifal: The Arthurian Myths from The Mabinogion to Malory’s Morte D’Arthur by Chretien de Troyes. 
The Grail from Celtic Myth to Christian Symbol by Roger Sherman Loomis. (1963).
War in Heaven by Charles Williams 1930).
The Avalonians by Patrick Benham.(1993).
The Mists of Avalon by Marion Bradley. (1983).
The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper. (1970s).

Temperance traditionally indicates consolidation and successful management in both the spiritual and material world. Here the cup pours out the gift of spirit and breath where it meets the gift of materialisation, incarnation and life. Spirit ebbs and flows, gives and takes away. The orange orb represents time.